Carleton Watkins Treasure

Check out this find from an "Antiques Roadshow" in Charlotte, North Carolina. An old 1860 album in a morocco binding that a man found in his mother-in-law's mother's attic. Much fun, and a beauteous thing:

And if you look a little farther into the same show you get to see the world's creepiest doll! What a bonus.  :-)

Mike

UPDATE: Had some trouble with the first embedded video...as far as I can tell this is the official PBS Antiques Roadshow video. If you can't see it, here's a link to the video on YouTube—start at about 8:35. —Ed.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Richard Man: "We saw a 80 original prints of Mr. Watkins at the Stanford Cantor Museum special exhibit in 2014. They were spectacular!"

Mike replies: They really are magnificent aren't they? Especially his large ones. The little JPEGs at the linked site are about as close to the real prints as the "heads" side of a quarter would be to the real George Washington!

Rod Sainty: "As you once suggested, Mike, someone thought the handsome portfolio too nice to throw out. Gorgeous photographs. The kind that can never be improved upon."

Mike replies: Wow, good memory you have, Rod! I did make that argument, long ago.

Comments

[James]

Wow! If that album was mine I'd have a tough time selling it for ANY amount.

But after careful scanning, I think I'd manage it.

[Daniel]

World's Creepiest Doll?
Can't be a Cabbage Patch, must be a Mother in Law Doll, right?

[V.I. Voltz]

The late Lauren Simonutti, who made the creepiest modern photographs I have seen, had a similar but three-faced doll in one of her photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/laurensimonutti/339050316/

I miss her coming to the Ballarat Photo Bienniale.

Marty

[Tom Frost]

Didn't realize that the Stanford library moved their albums to the Cantor Museum. They were just part of the library collection when I looked at them.

[Mike Kukulski]

I am surprised the album was not valued higher, as original Watkins prints are extremely rare due to most of Watkins’ plates and prints being destroyed by fire following the 1906 San Fransisco earthquake. If you are interested in more about Carleton F. Watkins, I wrote a article about Watkins as part of the photography history series for my blog:

https://notquiteinfocus.com/2015/04/26/a-brief-history-of-photography-part-14-photography-in-yosemite-b-a-before-ansel/